


See the Pretty Shooting Star

by busaikko



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse, Community: apocalypse_kree, Community: kink_bingo, Crossover, Episode: s05e20 Enemy at the Gate, M/M, Multi, Orgy, Post-Canon, Scarification, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-26
Updated: 2011-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:35:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Enemy at the Gate AU.  Atlantis is gone and Earth has fallen to the Wraith.  Cam Mitchell's putting together an army to retake the planet and dealing with love in the face of loss. For the 2011 Apocalypse Kree! Fest, "the things we do for love."</p>
            </blockquote>





	See the Pretty Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta** : mific, who was brave against run-on sentences and even scar-beta'd for me
> 
>  **Warnings:** implied/actual character death as per apocalypse (not graphic and onscreen), scars and scarring (consensual, with knife), implied prestory offscreen torture

> If this little world to-night  
> Suddenly should fall through space  
> In a hissing, headlong flight,  
> Shrivelling from off its face,  
> As it falls into the sun,  
> In an instant every trace  
> Of the little crawling things--  
> Ants, philosophers, and lice,  
> Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,  
> Beggars, millionaires, and mice,  
> Men and maggots all as one  
> As it falls into the sun...  
> Who can say but at the same  
> Instant from some planet far  
> A child may watch us and exclaim:  
> "See the pretty shooting star!"  
> Earth, by Oliver Herford

  


* * *

Cam wished for a million impossible things, but most of them he didn't dwell on much. He _couldn't_ let the big stuff overpower him, or wanting what he'd never get might kill him. But he did wish he'd been into guys back when John Sheppard had been beautiful.

He had a few memories of meeting John at work, just a note of hair color and eye color, nothing special. Ronon and Teyla and Vala, all of them told Cam John had been a looker. Teal'c seemed confused when Cam asked if he'd ever _notice_ -noticed John. Rodney just snorted and said John still was, didn't Cam have eyes?

John ducked his head down, driving Cam back to the edge of orgasm, and Cam stopped thinking.

"Please," Cam said, the words just falling out. "Come on, damn it, let me come let me, oh _fuck_."

John swallowed and Cam's hips jerked, and Cam slumped back, catching his fall with his elbows dug into the bedroll. Cam was still begging, like his mouth had forgotten how to do anything else, and he looked John right in the eyes and panted out, "Kiss me."

John let Cam's dick slide out of his mouth, giving it a last thoughtful little lick that made Cam's body curl up against the touch. John looked startled, and then cut his eyes away. "No," John said.

Cam would have argued, but Vala was pulling John down into the tangle of her legs and Teyla's, and Teal'c grabbed a handful of Cam's hair and tugged him towards Ronon, who needed a hand. Cam was doing to Ronon what John had done to him – he had Ronon swearing in Satedan – when Rodney stomped back into the cabin and threw his hands up.

"Fine, go ahead and have an orgy while I'm busy working, that shows a lot of respect, doesn't it?" Rodney said, stripping off his coat and then planting his hands on his hips.

"It was on the calendar," Vala countered, stretching her arms over her head. Rodney's eyes fixed on her breasts. "You're late."

"Busy," Rodney snapped. "Has Sheppard come yet?"

Ronon leaned forward just enough to grab John in an affectionate chokehold. John let himself be dragged into the circle of Ronon's arms, laughing. He was probably a little high, Cam thought; they all were. The local stuff on this planet was _good_. "Sheppard never comes," Ronon said, and kissed John's ear.

"Yeah, well." Rodney stripped, tossing his clothes into the mess on the floor, keeping only his wide belt, which he snapped carefully, checking the leather for flaws. "A girl can dream. Come here, Sheppard." John slipped to the edge of the bed, and then gave Rodney a glance. "On your knees, of course, right where you belong."

Cam'd asked Teyla about John and Rodney once, about whether it wasn't cruel, considering.

She'd shrugged, and given him a frustrated look. "Rodney hit John before," she answered, carefully, as if trying to avoid a misstep. "And other things." She smiled at him, eyes bright as they flashed through her lashes. "Not all of his scars. . . not all of them are new. Some of them we gave him, Ronon, Rodney, and I. Some he gave us. I think it would be cruel to change how we love him."

Tugged back into his competitive jerk-off with Teal'c and Ronon, Cam still found his eyes straying to John when he managed to wrestle into a position where he could see. Cam still found it hard to watch the belt raise bruises dark under John's skin, to hear the way John cried out when Rodney fucked him, to see Vala lick the sweat from his skin afterward, tongue efficient on John's nipples and cock and balls before Ronon dragged him down onto the floor, rolled John over, and licked Rodney's come out of his ass.

"Beard," John shouted, laughing and cursing, trying to escape. "You're like a fucking Brillo pad."

Ronon just spread John wider and licked deeper, and Teal'c got Cam pinned down for the count and demanded the same; to the victor the spoils.

Good times, Cam thought later, but _god_ they reeked.

The next time he had patrol with John, he thought about how John was two totally different people, naked and clothed. He thought of himself as basically the same either way, but John was untouchable and unknowable in his uniform. Even moreso when he wore sunglasses, like he was doing now.

"What do you think we'll find when we finally get back to Earth?" Cam asked. As questions went, it was possibly the worst. He didn't know why it popped out of his mouth, like jabbing a hornets' nest with a finger.

John shrugged and made a face. "Wraith," he said finally, after a silence that reminded Cam of the time he said _hell_ as a kid over Sunday dinner at his Grandma's.

Cam's team had been stuck offworld when the ZPM-powered hive ship dropped out of hyperspace and started its assault on Earth, blowing up the control chair and then moving on to the Mountain. John and his team had been on board the hive with a nuke and had tried to gate through to Atlantis. When they failed to get a connection, they'd gone on Sam's orders to the Alpha site. When Cam and his team showed up a day later, having been unable to establish a wormhole to Earth, John told him that in their last communication Sam had said not to come home without help. Without an army. Atlantis and the hive ship had collided and exploded and smashed down to Earth like the hand of God. Millions were dead or dying, and Wraith darts were trying to gain control of Stargate Command.

Cam was the highest-ranking member of the US military offworld, so he got to be in charge. He lost a lot of good people those first few months. He'd lost _John_ , which was nearly disastrous: John's whole team went against orders on an insane mission to find him and bring him back.

Cam kind of figured out that they were all sleeping together, then. He'd never seen Teyla cry for her partner and child back in Pegasus, but she'd screamed for what had been done to John by the bastards who'd taken him prisoner after he crashed. Ronon and Vala had had to pin her down until the rage shattered into sobs.

When John regained consciousness and had some idea of the scars he'd have to live with, what he was going to look like, he said it didn't matter, "As long as I can kill Wraith."

John said _Wraith_ in the same tone Cam's Grandma used to talk about the Devil and sin.

Cam thought a lot about religion these days, even though he tried not to. Maybe the next time he wanted to ask John an idiotic question, he'd ask if John believed in Heaven, and if they had any hope of ending up there.

But the way things turned out, the next really dumb thing Cam said was on an offworld mission when John had just been stabbed in the arm and was bleeding all over the place.

Cam gave John his handkerchief to bite down on while he cleaned and stitched up the cut, and John spat it out while Cam was tying the bandage around his arm.

"I can't believe you carry a fucking handkerchief," John said, almost laughing. "You got a parasol in your tac vest?"

"It's going to leave a scar," Cam said, and had John make a fist and bend his arm, checked that John could still feel his fingers and stuff. Cam put his hand over the bandage, reluctant to hide it under John's jacket. "I wish this one was mine, not some asshole's."

John twisted away from Cam's touch. "You're creepy about the scars," he said. "Most people are polite and ignore them, but you, you _look_ at them." John's mouth tightened. "I can't forget they're there when you look at me like that."

Cam shrugged, awkward. "You're the first guy I ever slept with, Sheppard. Maybe I just like looking at your stupid face."

He suspected that his fascination went deeper than that, that on some level he considered the scars symbolic, a new face for a new era.

But he couldn't say that to John. The compliment was good, though. It made John look kind of constipated with embarrassment, and the color in his face made the scarring that much more visible.

"I thought you were supposed to be the normal one," John said finally, giving Cam a sullen glare as he threaded his arm back into his t-shirt and then his jacket sleeve.

"In times like these, you think I want to be normal?"

John shrugged, and then jerked his head for Cam to get his ass in gear and start back for the gate. They had ten klicks to travel through hostile territory, and only a handful of daylight hours left.

By the time they got to their home-of-the-week, even Cam was filthy, and Teal'c made them both strip naked and wash down in the lake. John was good at pounding stains out of clothes with rocks; Cam repaid him by scrubbing his back and promising to patch the knife holes when John's stuff was dry. The water was sun-warmed, and it felt real good to just float for a while, arms stretched out and toes wiggling at the sky, while John sloshed up to go hang the washing.

This meant that by the time Cam hauled his wrinkly cold self up to the cabin, John had hogged the middle of the bed, sprawled indiscriminately over whatever parts of Vala and Teal'c and Ronon were in his way. Ronon was reading something on Rodney's computer, but he had one hand tucked in John's hair. John was smiling with his eyes closed, looking goofy and smugly superior, like his nakedness was a gift to the world.

When the other two got back, Rodney took personal offense that John had dared to get hurt – again – but Teyla soothed Rodney with her hands as she undressed him. Teyla set the pace for the night, bodies moving into each other with comforting touches and gentle pressure, slow and loving.

It about tore Cam apart, and he couldn't get enough of it, and once when he ended up in the middle, warm hands covering him from head to toe, he shook so bad that he suddenly wanted more than anything to know what Rodney's belt felt like, cutting in, opening him down to the core.

He didn't ask for it, didn't know how, but when everyone was sated and dozing off, he moved out of the nest of bodies, taking a blanket to the floor. The cold boards grounded him, and no one said anything to him about it in the morning. He was grateful for their silence.

A few weeks after that, Vala and Teal'c pulled off a sweet motherfucking caper that had John bouncing on his heels and talking loudly to the aliens about Hail Mary plays, complete with pantomimed passes. Mostly Cam figured they put up with John because he was going to pilot one of the ships they'd just stolen, but also because it was cute, in a manic kind of way.

They fought like devils to decide who was going to Earth and who was staying – everyone wanted to go. In the end, Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and said, "There's no question of repaying obligations, blah blah blah, it's got nothing to do with honor or responsibility. The hard facts are, everyone who goes to Earth is probably going to die, and the people who don't go have to have the political clout to warn the rest of the galaxy about the Wraith. Logically, that means Teal'c, who can also put in a good word with Jackson if he managed to Ascend again, and Teyla. I mean," and he winced as he spoke, "Ronon understands the Wraith, but Teyla's got the DNA, maybe some planet here is advanced enough to use that to make a weapon."

"I got no problems going down killing Wraith," Ronon said. "Feel bad for the kids we're bringing to the fight, though."

Vala shrugged; it looked like casual dismissal, but Cam figured she was putting up a front. "The Lucians enslaved them. If they can free Earth from the Wraith," she rolled both her hands out like a magician conjuring something from thin air, "surely the reward will be great." She sighed, and her shoulders dropped. "We at least have them aiming their guns in the right direction now. Most of the time."

Cam felt a pang at the idea of their green ragtag army settling into ransacked and abandoned farmhouses in America's heartland. He wondered how many Wraith hiveships were in Earth orbit by now. How long it would take to eat through a population of six billion. Well – six billion minus the millions wiped out when Atlantis and the super-hiveship impacted the planet, causing craters and firestorms and earthquakes and God only knew what kinds of disasters. Sam had told John the situation was really bad. Cam was sure that by now it was exponentially worse.

The day before they took the long hyperspace highway home, John dragged Cam off after supper, saying they needed to talk. John didn't talk, though, just walked fast, hands in his pockets, elbows and shoulders sharp angles, weight slung low so his hips moved like he was stalking prey. When they were out of sight from the camp, John grabbed Cam's arm to jerk him to a stop.

"I figure we're probably not going to see each other again," John said, light and easy.

"Don't count on it," Cam replied, just a bit sharper than the casual tone he'd been going for. Ronon had insisted that each ship have one person with experience fighting Wraith. So Vala was paired with Ronon, and Cam with Rodney, and John was going alone, which no one liked, though John said it didn't bother him any. _I've got five hundred kids with guns and bombs to keep in line_ , John kept saying. _You think I'm going to get_ bored _on this mission?_

"Fucking Wraith," John said, nodding as if agreeing with something. Then he seemed to snap into seriousness all at once, like someone'd thumbed his safety off. He took his big Satedan hunting knife out, hefted it in his hand, and then spun it neatly to offer Cam the hilt. Cam froze, hoping John wasn't trying to give it to him, because Ronon'd kick his ass if he accepted it, for one. "You wanted to mark me up. Now's your chance."

Cam took the knife. It was heavier than it looked, the balance perfect, and the blade was honed razor-sharp. He didn't know what to say, so he just told John to take off his shirt. He touched the center of John's chest, between his nipples, and met John's eyes.

"Anywhere," John said. "Carve your name across my face if you want, I don't care."

"Hey," Cam said. "I like your face the way it is." John raised his eyebrows, drawing attention to the still-raw scars that sliced through the one on the left, pulling the parts of it permanently askew. Cam gave a one-shouldered shrug.

John's mouth twisted. "You like knowing I can be broken? Because I did, I _was_." He broke off, teeth catching his lower lip.

Cam leaned in, hoping he wasn't showing the stab of anger in his gut. "I like knowing that _you came back_." He jabbed his finger hard against John's ribs. "Shut up and let me."

John blew out a breath, took another one, tried to work his expression back into nonchalance. "Knives," he said finally, like that was an apology and an excuse.

Ronon's mark on him was a two-inch tear from a whack with a wooden practice sword, and Teyla had left a half-moon scar low on John's back in some surfing incident that neither of them could talk about without doubling over with laughter. Rodney had left a series of thin lines across John's ass, which he blamed on being young and inexperienced, and had branded the back of John's hand with an Ancient cigarette lighter once. He always said that was John's fault; for being damageable, maybe. Those were accidental scars, like the abrasions from that stupid crash that had scoured the beauty from John's face and ripped across his shoulder to gouge strips into his back. Most of the rest of John's recent collection were from the people who'd tried to kill him, one way or another, with knives and guns and who knew what else. John never talked about it, but his face was there for anyone to see.

Those scars said John wasn't indestructible or immortal. Each one proclaimed that John was likely to die sooner rather than later, and meet that death in a dirty, painful, nasty way. But John's scars were like a great big _fuck you_ to the universe. He was only human, but he was _still here_ , still fighting.

Cam started cutting right under the pale starfish-shaped mark left from the time John was killed by a Wraith. He made a neat inverted V, getting the lines as straight as he could, which was easier on the right than the left. He didn't cut too deep, but there was still blood, and John wrinkled his nose and handed Cam a pack of antiseptic wet-wipes. They'd been so careful over the past months to ration the supplies stockpiled at the Alpha site, but now all that was changed. Now the supplies would probably outlast them.

Cam wiped off the blood and got John to keep up with the blotting while he added the last bit, a smooth twist of the knife around to make a near circle, like an unscrolling spiral. The tip of the knife slid too deep at the end and John hissed between his teeth. Cam started and would have dropped the knife as he jerked it back, but John took it from him one-handed, cleaned it on his shirt and put it away, all while Cam was realizing that he'd just held John's life in his hands, and he was going to walk away from here and leave unhealed scars like a language written on John's skin, saying things about Cam that he didn't have words for. His terror so big he couldn't describe it, and all their love that was not going to be enough, and the deep-down knowledge, growing like a cancer, that this fight was unwinnable

All of it ran him over like a semi truck, and John kind of laughed at him, putting his hand on Cam's dick, which was hard.

Cam said blasphemous things as John went to his knees to suck him off, but if there was a God – and despite it all, Cam still did believe – Cam figured God was busy elsewhere. Cam grabbed hold of John's hair, and John stuck his thumbs in the creases at the top of his thighs hard enough to have Cam thinking that shoving his dick down John's throat was a bad idea. But John was good at giving head, left to his own devices, and Cam was so close he didn't need much. He felt himself starting to crest the peak and pulled out, taking over the work of John's mouth with his hand. He wanted to come all over the lines he'd cut into John's chest, but guessed that was a bad idea so he jerked John's head back. John went still, eyes shutting, and Cam came with a shout, striping come across John's face, wet down his cheeks like tears, dripping from his half-open mouth like blood.

John waited until Cam was steady on his feet again before hauling himself up.

"Lick it off," John said, catching Cam's gaze and holding it. "I'm out of handi-wipes."

"Liar," Cam said, and leaned in to rasp his tongue up the pink new skin on John's cheek, over the marks left by the stitches, then sideways under his eye. He felt like a momma cat with a kitten, and took his time, learning John's taste and textures, the rasp of stubble and the thin vulnerability of eyelids. When he was done, he let his mouth linger over John's, and John put a hand in Cam's hair to pull him in. Cam was pretty used to kissing and being kissed, what with all the sex he kept having, but this felt different. A little bit too much like kissing himself, he thought, and shivered when John caught his tongue between his teeth. John broke the kiss off, pulled back, and grinned, slow and lazy, as he tugged his shirt back on.

Back in camp, everyone had already stripped for one last fling, and Cam's heart did that Grinch thing, growing three sizes as hands reached out for him, helping him off with his clothes and drawing him in. John held back, and Cam worried for a moment that maybe he'd done something wrong. But then he heard Rodney's over-loud outrage at the bloody cuts on John's chest, and John stopped taking his pants off to kiss Rodney silent.

"I'm going back over there," Rodney said, breaking away and pointing, "to finish what Teyla started. And then I'm going to paint you with iodine and put band-aids in all your chest hair and spank you so badly you won't be sitting down for a _year_."

"Promises, promises," John said, letting Vala drag him backwards until his pants dropped and he fell into Teal'c's lap. They were up half the night fucking, no one talking about why, and fell asleep curled together by unspoken agreement. Dawn came too soon.

Cam lost Rodney a couple of weeks after returning to Earth, and after that he never did see any of them again. But he remembered as long as he could; glad and grateful while he was alive, and sure of where his home was right to the moment of his death.


End file.
